Articles

For almost a decade, Sara Simon ’13 built a career as a data journalist, with positions at the New York Times , Vermont Public Radio, and Spotlight PA, an investigate newsroom covering Pennsylvania. But this fall, she began a Ph.D. in history at Northwestern University.

Charlotte Ashamu ’01 began her career working in global economic development before moving into the cultural heritage realm. She is now the director of international programs at the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage at Yale University. Her big push in this new role has been to launch the Yale Directors Forum, a global fellowship that provides training for leaders at African cultural heritage institutions.

A distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Deborah Chung ’74 developed a building product called “smart concrete.”

On the last Saturday of each month, Jennie Gerard ’66 joins the Lake Merritt Weed Warriors, an all-volunteer band of gardeners she co-founded, to supplement public works staff by tackling much-needed weeding, planting, and mulching in the urban oasis in Oakland, Calif.

Natalie Mendenhall ’17, an audio producer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, participated in the Wellesley in Washington program and credits that experience with preparing her to become the news producer she is today. “I feel really blessed to be working in journalism at this changing time … people will always need the news.”

Stephanie Kacoyanis ’05, with her commanding contralto voice, dramatic acting style, and striking bearing, has won Boston Globe accolades for “scorching the stage” in her operatic portrayals. Reviewers describe her powerful tone as “dark,” “majestic,”...

In November 2023, New York City officials erected a tent city at Floyd Bennett Field, an out-of-use airport facility in Brooklyn. Some 2,000 asylum seekers, all families with children, were settled there to face the winter ahead. “This is my backyard,” says Ariana Hellerman ’03. She decided to help.

In 1911, a fire broke out on an upper floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in lower Manhattan, killing 146 workers, most of them immigrant women. It was one of the worst workplace disasters in United States history. More than 100 years later, Meg Browne ’79 helped establish a memorial to the victims.

A successful working artist in New York, Juyon Lee ’18 credits the film classes she took with Prof. Eve Zimmerman for her Japanese minor and a first-year drawing class with professor of art Daniela Rivera with leading her where she is now.